Kenyan investigators on Tuesday found the bodies of 16 other people in mass graves linked to a religious group calling for fasting to "meet Christ", bringing the total number of victims to 89, including children.
Fears are growing that more bodies could be found in the Shakahola forest near the coastal town of Malindi, where police have been conducting sweeps for days after receiving information about the religious group Good News International Church, headed by Paul McKenzie Nthingi, who said starvation sends his followers to God.
Some of the bodies exhumed on Tuesday belonged to children, while emergency workers were still continuing their efforts in Malindi, an Indian Ocean port town.
Most of the bodies were exhumed from graves dug a little below the ground, while a few members of the community were found alive and emaciated but later died.
During a visit to the site on Tuesday, Interior Minister Keithor Kendíke warned of worst-case scenarios, telling reporters, "We don't know how many graves and how many bodies are likely to be found," adding that the crimes were serious enough to warrant terrorism charges against Thingi.
Kennedici confirmed that 34 people had been found alive so far in the vast jungle after police received information about the group's practices and began investigating the crime scene. One criminal investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "the majority of the bodies exhumed belonged to children."
As the death toll soared, Malindi government hospital authorities warned Tuesday that the morgue could no longer accommodate more and was overstretched.
"The hospital morgue has a capacity of 40 bodies," said the hospital's administrative officer, Sayed Ali, adding that officials had contacted the Kenya Red Cross to obtain refrigerated containers.
A number of Good News International Church followers are believed to still hide in a forest and risk death if not found quickly.
Shock and horror
Hussein Khaled, executive director of the rights group Haqqi Africa, told police about the group's practices and urged authorities to deploy more rescuers to comb the 800-acre forest for neighborhoods.
"Every day that passes there is an increased risk of more people dying," he told AFP, adding that 50 to 60 percent of the victims were children.
"The horror we've seen in the last four days is shocking. Nothing makes you ready for scenes of mass graves of children."
Investigators said they found bodies piled up to six pits in pits, while others were left lying on the ground.
Kenyan President William Ruto has vowed to take action against rogue clerics like Nthen who "want to exploit religion to promote a strange and unacceptable faith" and likened it to terrorists.
As the results of the investigation unfolded, questions arose about how this sect was able to operate undetected, despite the police spotting Nthen Ningi six years ago.
Nthengi was arrested in 2017 on charges of "extremism" after urging families not to send children to school, noting that the Bible does not recognize education.
He was arrested again last month, according to local media, after two children starved to death under the care of their parents. He was released on bail of 100,700 Kenyan shillings (about $<>) before turning himself in to police following Operation Shakahula, where he will appear in court on May <>.